A Coptic Orthodox Christian congregation has a meal together after the holy mass as a sign of love and communion. In in the early days a complete meal was offered after the mass. At the present time, the Korban, a small round loaf of bread has been substituted for the meal. The Korban is stamped with the “Trisagin” (the triple invocation of God as holy) and with crosses and has the same wheat flour, water and yeast only. The bread is leavened and is baked unsalted. The central part of the Korban is called “Despatikon” meaning “Lordly” and around the Despatikon twelve crosses referring to the twelve disciples. The Despatikon also is pierced with five holes referring to the spear and nails which Christ suffered. The word “Agios” is written in three times on the periphery of the Despatikon which represents the “Holy Trinity”.
Currently, most of the individual churches around the world make the Korban on the premises manually and with primitive means. The first part of the process of the present invention, which is preparing the dough in the form of slab or individual round ball is easy to address because there is commercial equipment available in the market as such as sheeters, rounders and dividers that accomplish this part of the process. However, the second part of the process of the present invention which includes the cutting, stamping and piercing the dough presents a major challenge as no commercial equipment is available to accomplish these steps. The second part of the process is the most time consuming and has the largest impact on the quality and uniformity of the finished Korban. This has led to the subject matter of this invention.
Prior art references that relate to imprinting dough with relatively complex patterns engraved on a surface disposed on stamping devices include: U.S. Pat. No. 177,319, U.S. Pat. No. 2,008,725, U.S. Pat. No. 4,424,601, U.S. Pat. No. 6,990,892 U.S. Pat. No. 4,276,800, U.S. Pat. No. 5,162,119, U.S. Pat. No. 5,388,489, U.S. Pat. No. 7,845,928, US2010/0159095 and US2012/0251690. Generally, the stamping devices contain engraved units surrounded by borders configured for stamping out dough pieces by applying vertical pressure onto these stamping devices.
Imprinting this pattern on dough and creating the finished Korban presents a number of challenges not addressed by the prior art. The pattern on the Korban loaf contains raised areas, such as the images of some of the crosses and the Coptic symbols and letters, alongside sunken areas; for example in some of the border outline areas and some of the cross images. The overall pattern must be configured in such a way that the dough flows smoothly between the raised and sunken areas on the emboss pattern so that not to disrupt the imprinted images on the Korban. Furthermore, the dough must be pierced through to produce the five holes representing the spear and nails that pierced Christ. Additionally, each loaf must go through the process of proofing and baking individually starting with uncured dough pieces that contain only flour water and yeast that tend to be unstable if left unbaked for long periods of time. In order to prevent the imprint on the dough from fading away, the dough must be sufficiently hard and stable when imprinted. This is accomplished by using heat while flattening the dough balls to flat and circular patty shaped dough. Throughout the process, air tends to build up inside the dough and a mechanism that allow for the air to escape in order to prevent air build-up from disrupting the dough from rising to the full loaf must be provided.